Asymmetrical Information

It's disturbing how so many people seem to be so unconcerned about whether what the media is reporting is true or not, as long as it supports their side.

Amen, Megan! I'm really glad that you are looking at the issue this way, that the issue is preserving the press's credibility with the public. It's one thing for the media to show bias in news pieces, and quite another thing to publish derivative literary fiction as fact. The former is unavoidable (we all have our biases), but the latter is avoidable.

It's too late. I already find myself trusting them less and less. Even the ones I agree with.

I agree that the press should strive to report as accurately as possible. Insofar as John Quiggin implies otherwise, he is wrong.

But he also makes a bigger point, that focusing too much on the trees can easily lead one to lose sight of the forest. The point he makes, as I understand it, is that even you think all Beauchamp said was false there are enough other reports that report similar events that are not in doubt. So much depends on whether the main concern is Beauchamp's claims or the wider meaning you can deduce from them.

I agree that his segway into the O'Hanlon fiasco is a bit muddled. But, again, he makes a bigger point in this case about how the media reports.

I think he could have said much of what he did in another manner, expressed himself better, but if you read carefully I believe his meaning is clear.

I quit trusting reporters long ago. I look to see what other sources report the same thing. A conspiracy or distortion is hard to hold when widespread. The truth has more supporters and remains consistent... Internet makes us all fact-checkers. We can compare reports, reporters, blogs and analysts easily. It's too bad the editors and reporters do not hold themselves to a higher standard of truth. A reputation takes a lifetime to gain and only a few days to lose... Will we ever trust the NYTimes, AP or Reuters again? Or will we read them for their puff pieces on celebrities and political wit in equal tones of serious concern...

..even you think all Beauchamp said was false there are enough other reports that report similar events that are not in doubt.

That's exactly the equivocation Ms. McArdle is calling him on. "It doesn't matter if it was true" is a sentence that should not leave the lips of anyone in the journalism wing of the entertainment industry. Nowhere else could such moral laziness survive.

"Well there were no clouds but the point is it has rained a lot this month so we forecasted rain."

"Well, it doesn't matter if the stock I recommended had a P/E ration much higher than I said. The important thing is that I got the P/E ratios of other stocks right a lot."

"It doesn't matter if the tumor was cancerous, most of the ones that look like that aren't, so I recommended ignoring it."

etc. Beauchump's thesis was that the war had made him cruel and he took it out on a disfigured woman. When called on it he backed down and said the incident happended before he went to war. It destroys the whole thrust of his article. For anyone to recommend overlooking such blatant lying is absurd. "Media" - a means of conveyance. What gets conveyed isn't supposed to mutate into something unrecognizable.

Any story I read in the newspaper that I was involved in and knew the facts about personally, had numerous errors.

Anyone who believes uncritically what they read in a newspaper or hear on television is a fool. I read the newspaper now in about 10 minutes, searching for something I have not already read much more about on the internet. I usually find nothing of significance, or when I do, essential parts of the story are missing. I have asked several people I know about Mueller's anti-Gonzales testimony, and why there are never any quotes of what he said, only recaps by Democrats. If like I have, you have read the quotes on the internet, it is obvious why - the man is trying to lie without actually technically lying.

It is amusing to hear friends and family talk about "new" items that I have known about for a week or more. When on occasion I have told them that I was aware of something long before it made the papers, they refuse to believe, or claim that it must have taken that long to "verify". I am apparently the only one in my circle who notices that some stories require protracted "verification", sometimes infinite in duration, while others burst forth immediately in half-formed allegations that are never verified, but simply bcome part of leftist folklore.

The media is a vile business, and useful mainly for understanding what lies the enemies of freedom are cooking up at the moment.

I'm surprised to see that an economist thinks a publication's job is to print the "truth." Its job is to make money for its owner.

Now usually that will involve nodding in the direction of the truth from time to time, to the extent readers may demand it, but there is no necessary connection, and the fact is that most of a political publication's readers are, to some extent, as interested in having their views reinforced as they are in having "the truth."

That said, when a blatant lie is exposed, the publication usually must do something to reassure readers that everything is in order; this will take the form of (a) denial, (b) obfuscation, so that there is a sufficient lack of clarity that proof one way or the other cannot be made within the attention span of readers, (c) minimization of the error ("false but accurate!"), or (d) mea culpas (Jason Blair) to put everyone off the scent until the next time.

But always remember that truth is in second place, at best.

"I'm surprised to see that an economist thinks a publication's job is to print the "truth." Its job is to make money for its owner."

And how, pray, does it make such money? Why, by printing items which readers believe to be the truth, reliably enough that they're willing to pay for the information.

Or do you suggest that non-economists are willing to pay money for 'news' texts whose truth is irrelevant?

Mr. Quiggen supports the Liberal dogma that "Fake, but Accurate" is not only acceptable in journalism, but is desired. Liberals know that there is no need to waste time getting evidence of what you believe to be true; just make something up. Soemtimes it is necessary to lie to get the proletariat to grasp the truth.

The point he makes, as I understand it, is that even you think all Beauchamp said was false there are enough other reports that report similar events that are not in doubt.

If there are so many other reports and incidents, why the need to fabricate any? Why not report the real ones? In the real world, such fabrication is generally strong evidence that there are not "enough other reports" for precisely this reason. I am always instantly suspicious of such claims of commonality where the claimant can't provide any specific and factual examples, e.g. "his column was chock full of obvious errors but I can't be bothered to point any out". Doesn't that make you think the writer is just blowing smoke and hoping you won't look for the fire?

Another case in point is the recently circulated photograph of an Iraqi woman holding up what the cation said were "bullets which hit her house". The responding blogstorm was not in response to the implication that our forces negligently or maliciously targeted civilian residences. It was because anyone the least bit familiar with firearms could see that what she was holding were not bullets which had hit anything, but unfired cartridge rounds which could not have hit anything unless thrown or dropped.

The point he makes, as I understand it, is that even you think all Beauchamp said was false there are enough other reports that report similar events that are not in doubt.

So, in other words, there's a "higher truth" that Beauchamp's stories are speaking to, and that "truth" is so lofty and pure that mundane things such as factual verification are pretty much irrelevant.

As the poet says, heh.

I'm amazed at how often the "fake but accurate"
gambit gets trotted out to defend pathetically bogus claims. We've seen this recently during the Rathergate scam, and also from a number of Mike Nifong's defenders in the Duke lacrosse non-rape case.

Foer said that Beauchamp's stories "smelled good." That is, they fit perfectly into the war narrative that he had already committed to beforehand. Mary Mapes excuse for being duped by obviously phony documents was that "they confirm everything we knew about George W. Bush."

(Of course, it would never occur to these media mavens that a counterfeit $100 bill would also "smell good" and "confirm everything we know about how a $100 bill should look" -- that's what makes counterfeits so dangerous).

Narratives are not necessarily bad things, and in fact, I think that they're a way in which we limited and finite human beings organize and make coherent sense out of incomprehensibly huge numbers of facts, data, and sensory input. That is, we cannot possibly know exhaustively every fact and every detail, so our minds construct narratives to help us understand reality quickly and efficiently.

Narratives are hard to break. It takes a lot of wisdom and courage to know when to modify or discard your narrative when it no longer fits reality. Mary Mapes and Dan Rather held on to theirs until they became laughingstocks. And it looks like Franklin Foer is walking down the same road, along with his enablers such as John Quiggin.

There's really not much point in debating the "reality-based community" (very Orwellian, that) on truth and reality. No one likes to have his views debunked, but the intellectually honest will reluctantly accept it when it happens (viz., Abu Ghraib).

The not-so-intellectually honest will resort to the "higher truth" that they somehow know, and dismiss evidence that they've been had, and that their views were shaped by fiction.

And as for Quiggin, note that asymmetry. If Beauchamp's fables had proven true, I suspect he would have been shouting them from the rooftops. Since they're not, they're unimportant in the broader context.

Bottom line: leftist propaganda has painted American forces as exceptionally barbaric, savage, and inhumane since the Korean War (remember germ warfare?). It's a theme that continues to this day. Almost like there's been a concerted effort to promote this theme, to undermine an important American institution. Cui bono?

A lot of people really don't understand how lazy/deceitful/incompetent the media can be until some journalist tramples all over a subject that they themselves happen to be an expert on. Later, you start to realize that their reporting is equally bad on other subjects as well.

Way back at SF State during the troubles, instructor Kay Boyle told her journalism students it was no longer acceptable for a reporter just to cover a riot, sometimes they had to pick up a rock themselves. NOT ONE NEWSPAPER TOOK HER TO TASK FOR THAT COMMANT!

Sound like his MO.

The guy falls into the category of not even wrong.

Gabriel: "The point he makes, as I understand it, is that even you think all Beauchamp said was false there are enough other reports that report similar events that are not in doubt. So much depends on whether the main concern is Beauchamp's claims or the wider meaning you can deduce from them."

Please name the other reports that tend to prove that war degrades the character of all who participate in it, that he was a delicate and sensitive little flower until he was desenstiized by war's horrors. That's what beauchamp's thesis was.
Please explain how anyone can logically "deduce" wider meaning from claims that are not demonstrably true.

Someone needs a course in Critical Thinking. And it ain't me.

Oregon Muse: "Of course, it would never occur to these media mavens that a counterfeit $100 bill would also "smell good" and "confirm everything we know about how a $100 bill should look" -- that's what makes counterfeits so dangerous)."

Bingo!

Sherlock": "Mueller's anti-gonzalez testimony".

Except that the testimoney wasn't anti-Gonzalez.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/white-house-gonzales-and-mueller-are-both-right-2007-07-27.html

Please notice how fast Schumer et al stopped talking "perjury" and "impeachment" over the apparent contradiction. If your position were true, they would still be baying like hounds. Deal with it.

The sloppily cynical JohnF said: "I'm surprised to see that an economist thinks a publication's job is to print the "truth." Its job is to make money for its owner."

Sorry, but newspapers and other media organs have heretofore distinguished factual "news" reportage and narratives about supposedly factual events from fiction, advocacy or "opinion". If JohnF thinks TNR and the New York Times built their reputation on "whatever sells", then he has to explain to us why the publishers themselves purport to hold themselves to higher standards. Or are they all liars? IOW there's no difference between supermarket tabloids ("Elvis fathered my six-year-old") and the Washington post?)

And why the snot about the "economist"? does JohnF believe that other newspaper readers do NOT look for truth, objectivity and ACCURACY as standards in reporting actual events?

For better or worse, you cannot create a convincing $100 bill in Microsoft Word on the default settings.

It's the narrative. Fake but accurate.

Hansen's numbers are a case in point. He waved them under everybody's nose, until they were proved to be artifacts, then he dismissed them as trivial and meaningless.
Kinda like the guy holding up a bank with a finger in his pocket who, when he accidentally exposes his empty hand continues to aim his finger like a gun.

So another journalism person says the facts were wrong but the story was right? Duke case anyone?

I've had enough experience with journalists to feel that they rank for me on the respect level somewhere between child molester and cannibalistic serial murderer. Regardless of the political leanings to the left or right I view the entire profession with disdain and disgust. It's the only profession where we are supposed to give them some sort of respect or adulation despite the fact the require no training or certification for their work, face no repercussions for their lies or mistakes, aren't monitored or regulated, and now, apparently, feel they don't even have to tell the truth.

How very decent of you, Megan, to give Franklin Foer the benefit of the doubt.

Just to recap --

1. He ran the Beauchamp fabrications.

2. He went to great extents to conceal the fact that Beauchamp was selected because of his relationship with Ellie Reeve (who herself used Beauchamp as a quoted, named source in stories for a previous employer, without mentioning her personal relationship with him).

3. His misrepresented the "fact-checking" used at TNR

4. He misrepresented what he was told by MNF-I and Centcom spokesmen.

5. He misrepresented what was asked and answered in the conversation between an TNR "researcher" and a spokesman for BAE Systems.

6. He continues to ask us to accept his report based on his claimed contact with various people, all of whom must be kept totally secret.

I too think Foer is concerned about the truth. Just not in a positive way.

At least Foer's predecessor and role model Stephen Glass had notes and a website for HIS bogus sources. Foer doesn't even respect his readers enough to fake support for his fake stories. He's a fraud and a phony.

Megan, may you always espouse truth, for then I read you. Giving in to the temptation to shade the truth to give support to a 'side' will result in my tendency to pass over a writer.

Let the reader make decisions, after reflection.

How is it that the same rabid journalists who've cheered Bernie Ebbers life sentence for fraudulent financial reporting find zero accountability in their profession's intentional misreporting?

Ebbers deserves the punishment he received. He caused thousands of individuals to suffer financial harm by believing the false and misleading information he permitted to be released. Likewise, our thousands of individuals are making incorrect political decisions regarding their support (or lack) of the war against Islamists due to intentionally misleading and false reporting by The New Republic, AFP, the AP and other alleged press agencies.

TNR's editorial staff deserves the same treatment as Ebbers and given time, increasing support for comparable criminal treatment for offenders similar to those prescribed by Sarbanes Oxley are likely. There is no freedom of intentionally false and damaging speech. False press releases misleading investors on company financial conditions is less damaging than false press reports on our nation's national security efforts. Let's see Foer and his criminal ilk suffer the same consequence.

Somewhere, Mike Royko is spinning like a DVD in his grave. He once said the basic premise for reporting was "if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out." He never set foot inside a journalism program. I'm not sure he finished high school. I do know he was a hell of a reporter.

Perhaps 'journalism' schools and programs should be forced to rename themselves 'reporter' schools and programs and drop the concentration on 'narrative' and such and concentrate on accurately 'reporting' the facts. Of course, you might be able to teach that in a few weeks rather than years, so the financial end might need a bit of tweaking.

I haven't really believed much in the news for a few decades now. I'm retired but I was pretty good at my job. I am still somewhat of an expert in my hobby. Precisely what those are doesn't much matter, what does matter is that almost every news story concerning them had glaring errors.

I have friends with other jobs and hobbies. Oddly, almost every news story concerning those jobs and hobbies had glaring errors, so they tell me.

At some point we just stop believing.

You know what would be interesting, if a conservative newspaper were to run a story proving that forrest fires are being set by ecology nuts, just to "prove" Hansen's predictions about global warming.
They could quote unnamed liberals who have qualms about the illegal firebug activity being encouraged by unnamed conservationist leaders, and how it was the "last straw" that drove them to leave that community when those leaders started soliciting for hitmen to take out key figures in the oil and energy sector's media spin machine.

Then we could gauge by the outrage from the drive by media how much they care about truth in journalism.

Its time for a class action law suite against the major media companies. For years they have been representing to us that they are purveyors of the unbiased truth. Sure most of their staff lean left but their professionalism and layers of fact-checkers means this does not matter.

Obviously with all of the lies they have printed their claim is false. No different than a huckster pushing a magic pill that will cure all your health problems. The media claims should be treated the same as the claims of any other business. By this standard they should all be in jail for fraud. Not just the owners but anyone who knowingly allowed a false or misleading story to be published.

The problem with journalism is that the more education the "professionals" receive, the more they drift from what the public views as the core mission of the journalist: telling the truth.
In high school journalism class they teach you to get the facts. However, as evidenced by numerous stories by reporters themselves, elite journalists consider creating a "narrative" to be more important, as it's how the best distinguish themselves from the mediocre: anyone can report facts, but creating a narrative allows the journalist to showcase his or her writing skills and creativity.
Eventually, at the upper reaches of the top tier of the profession, the straight-jacket of facts is discarded completely in favor of entirely fabricated events and persons. Introducing "facts" at this level of journalism compromises the journalist's artistic integrity -- the journalist operating at this level is entirely capable of fabricating stories out of whole cloth. To such a talent, the suggestion that "facts" might be required is the basest kind of insult.
Members of the public interested more in getting facts and less in being amazed by the best the creative writing field has to offer need first to understand the creative character of the elite journalist and second that if it's facts they seek they should look anywhere else but to journalists.
The journalist's natural evolution from fact-transcriber to author, writer, and storyteller cannot be stopped by the general public, ignorant as they are of the importance of "narrative". If we non-journalists must consume MSM, we should do so with an understanding of what we're really seeing, which is creative writing at its best, and we should marvel at the human imagination operating at its highest levels.
We should NOT, however, expect the reporting of facts. That is not the journalist's job.
That's what we have the Internet for.

I'm coming back a little late, but let me respond to my critics!

Sure, readers want the truth. But whether the publication gives it to them will depend on what will sell the most print. Do you think the great tabloid fortunes of 100 years ago were made by selling the truth?

I am distinguishing what readers want, what the publication tells them it is giving, and what in fact it is giving. "The truth" answers well for the first two, and may, by luck wind up in the third as well.

Why do you think the MSM has conniption fits over the blogosphere? Why did Dan Rather? Because the usual half truths and lies were exposed, and the old paradigm--say it's all the news that's fit to print, but print whatever the hell will sell papers--is undermined. If that paradigm didn't exist, there wouldn't be the MSM squirming.

Journalists should tell the truth. So should the President. Which is worse, a lie about a dogs death that outrages the country and makes them want to stop killing, or a lie about weapons of mass destruction that scares the country into killing innocent people, occupies their country, foments a civil war, destroys the infrastructure of the country, and upsets the world economy by taking an energy producer offline and adds about 40% to the price of energy?

Jean: "Which is worse...a lie about weapons of mass destruction...

1) Tu Quoque fallacy. Please have the integrity to condemn TNR's lies without qualification.

2) False assertion. Bush did not lie about WMDs. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And please explain how two WMD weapon inspection regimes could claim Iraq was clean while missing 500 arty shells filled with Sarin and Mustard Gas? The the is not Bush's, the lie is yours. Your statement should read:

"Whats worse, a lie about a dogs death...or my lie that Bush Lied!"

The function of journalism isn't to provide facts but to create entertaining (or why bother?) filler to go between the ads. Accuracy isn't just irrelevant to this but actually counterproductive; fact-checking delays publication, costs money and may end up making an otherwise good story unusable. The media fill more space faster, at lower cost, by reporting inaccurately and then reporting ON the inaccurate reporting than they would by getting it right in the first place.

Remember all the hooraw about Richard Jewell? If the media'd stuck to facts there wouldn't have been much of a story but as it was, hysterical reporting not only filled up the space between a lot of ads but culminated in an hour-long Nightline special examining the prior coverage, which of course supported an hour's worth of ads all by itself.

Journalism really *is* entertainment.

Dude. It's the publisher's job to make money for the owner. It's the reporter's job to get to the truth.

It ain't that complicated.

I quite frankly haven't trusted the MSM regarding the veracity of political reporting (national or international) for many years.

And there is no reporting from Iraq by the MSM; they get their information from AP Reuters et al "stringers" in Iraq, who often as not are making stories up. Many of the stringers are tied to the enemy, from ex-Baathist insurgents to the Mahdi Army to al Quada.

Newspapers and Television News from across the country take their leads from whatever the NYTimes is saying - it's pathetic. There really isn't any reporting of the news any longer. It is all supporting the political biases of the media which is essentially left wing and they have become the PR for the Democrat(ic) Party.

Reminds me of this gem.

The level of willful self-deception in that guy is astounding.

The lesson to take from the CBS Rather/Mapes hoax was not the content, but the behavior - their coverup was arrogant and sloppy, like a spouse thats been cheating for so long that they quit investing time and energy in precautions they used to take. It tells us that the MSM has been cheating us for a very long time.

Members of the public interested more in getting facts and less in being amazed by the best the creative writing field has to offer need first to understand the creative character of the elite journalist and second that if it's facts they seek they should look anywhere else but to journalists.

Let's see if we can't spot the difference:

A. Active-duty soldier, anonymously describing "what it's like" in Iraq.

B. Two think-tank scholars reporting under their own names "what it's like" in Iraq.

All three of these characters may have axes to grind. But the guy who's writing ANONYMOUSLY, while simultaneously touting his military status to lend extra credibility ("complete moral authority," perhaps?) to his outlandish tales -- well, that guy is somebody that any smart editor would be very careful about publishing.

Look, the two Brookings guys put their name on their work. Anybody can fact-check their reports -- did they go to Iraq? did they see what they said they saw? -- and hold them accountable. The Washington Post is not responsible if their analysis is somehow incorrect. They are reputable scholars from a reputable organization, and anybody who reads their work can research their backgrounds and assess their credibility.

When Franklin Foer decided to stake TNR's credibility on the word of an anonymous 20-something whose previous journalistic experience was writing for some campus alternative paper ... hello? questionable judgment? firing offense?

Bush can solve this problem immediately by putting Franklin Foer in charge of FEMA. "Heckuva job, Franky!"

Large numbers of media people believe -- really, truly believe -- that nearly everyone else in the media is a White House apologist; as one of my colleagues charmingly put it, "It's not my job to suck Bush's dick." So they feel they need to be all the more "vigilant" on reporting the man's myriad lies and crimes, even if it means fudging a bit at times. Hey, nobody said the revolution was going to be all cut-and-dried, right?

My husband was a high-school journalism student who decided to go to Indiana University primarily because of its excellent journalism program. He transferred to George Mason to study economics after one semester.

One of the last straws for him was his experience working on the Indiana Daily Student (IDS). There was another Freshman reporter who quickly became the darling of the editors, but his articles were awful. In one series about a local developer's plan to build a golf course, the reporter used the local environmental group as the source of the statement from the developer! He never contacted the devloper at all. And no one saw a problem with it but my husband.

If this is what passes for top-notch journalism instruction, there's no wonder the profession is in shambles.

Excuse me for inturrupting - how do we know that the Beauchamp stories are false? I've looked high and low and I could see only two sources of information on that topic - one was based on investigative journalism of the reporters at TNR, asking questions of other soldiers (anons) for verification.

The other side was provided by the official sources at the Army/Pentagon, who as well all know, would NEVER lie about anything (*cough* *cough* Abu Ghraib *cough cough* Pat Tillman *cough cough* Jessica Lynch *cough cough*). After all, its not like when something like this, if true, makes the Army look HORRIBLE, that when the full bird colonel comes around asking questions of the 19-year-old privates, that they would EVER consider just saying whatever it was they thought the army wanted them to say. We all know how it is perfectly common that skinny 19-year old privates stand up to 45 year old full-bird colonels with a few majors standing behind them with necks thicker than my legs.

I mean, how naive and gullible can you be to just say the Army's investgation ends the matter?

"Excuse me for inturrupting - how do we know that the Beauchamp stories are false?"

1) None of his stories surivived fact-checking [no disfigured contracter in Kuwait, not possible for tracked Bradely to swerve into dog, graves that were desecrated do not exist, etc]

2) Beauchamp himself admitted they were fabrications, and he is refusing to respond to further media inquires, including TNR's.

Could you give me a source for that, Fen? I've looked and still can't find anything other than what I outlined above. Sure, I saw before that some anonymous official military source CLAIMED that Beauchamp recanted, but again, forgive me for not taking the official Pentagon position as gospel.

As far as fact checking, independent soldiers did confirm some of what he said, so your statement that none of his stories survived fact checking is false. Now, could those soldiers have also been lying, part of some conspiracy to make the military look bad? Sure. Again, where is there some indepedent (e.g. non partisan, non military) investgation here?

I'm not going to take the Military's or the Government's "just trust us" word on it. That word is worthless and valueless. And seeing what a private says when the whole of the Army is on his back is also rather useless now.

Where's the independent investigation here? I still don't see that there even has been one. Why isn't the NYT (admittedly very pro-war and pro-military) or the Post or some other group of real journalists getting on this to get the answer? I would really like to know the truth, not the latest spin and talking points from the various partisan camps.

Jane, I'm here to tell you I'm 100% behind TNR and Crooked Timber. Facts are so last century, man. I even made a YouTube video in honor of the issue and embedded in a post on my blog.

It would be great to get a link on your blog in exchange for all the effort I put into this and the link I sent you.

Yeah, begging for links is very undignified. Then again, so is modern journalism.

;-)

The latest on this is that Franklin Foer appears to be in denial.

I'll say it again, so the cognitively disenfranchised can have it tattooed backwards on their foreheads where they can read it in the mirror:

THE BURDEN OF PROOF LIES UPON THE PARTY MAKING THE ASSERTION, NOT ON THOSE DOUBTING THE ASSERTION.

Got it? Beauchamp/TNR made the assertion, IT'S THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO SUBSTANTIATE IT.

Given their failure to do so, we have to reject it. And they have failed to do so.

Simple, really.

Please don't start with the conspiracy rubbish. None of that is consistent with the principle of parsimony, aka (ahem) Occam's Razor.

You've been had. Accept it, and resolve to be a little more skeptical in the future.

Occam's Beard - How right you are. It has been asserted that Beauchamp recanted, yet I found no evidence that he had beyond an anonymous attribution in the Weekly Standard. So that's why I doubt that assertion.

The military has asserted that the stories were all made up, and so I doubt that assertion as well, given there are no details given and given the source.

And finally, Beauchamp himself has made assertions that the TNR has asserted that they verified with independent sources.

So, I ask, which version is correct? I can't just assume the military is correct or the Weekly Standard is correct - they haven't provided the proof to support their assertions any more than TNR or Beauchamp have.

Thus, my question - where is there any independent information about this.

DBB: There's such a thing as being a healthy skeptic, and then there's irrational paranoia. IMO your treatment of the military's ability to investigate is treading beyond skeptical.

1. Abu Ghraib was reportedly already under internal investigation by the military when the media caught wind and then made hay out of it.

2. The Tillman and Lynch things are odd. On the other hand, some of that was also blown out of proportion and timeline when the media got their hands on it. Notice a trend here?

3. The military is quite capable of conducting an internal investigation on STB's claims which will rely on much more than just what STB says once the screws are tightened down. Actions of the type he described necessarily had clear times and places based on troop assignments, and therefore, credible witnesses who can be called up to testify on a whim and with no civilian rights to exercise. If STB hasn't been court martialed or otherwise severely disciplined, it's very likely because he really was spinning fiction, and therefore merited only some sort of lesser reprimand.

I realize it can be hard to envision a professional organization with a strong displinary ethic in this day and age, and people who have little or no interaction with the military might find it hard to envision; but honestly, your objections are stretching credibility.

Am I mistaken in understanding that the idea of an objective, tone-impartial media is actually a very young invention in history?

It is not paranoid nor is it anything but healthy to have skepticism about official government versions of investigations, particularly when they are about a politically sensitive issue.

Truly, I don't CARE whether Beauchamp was telling the truth or not - it is a tiny wart on the huge elephant that is the Iraq war. I don't see that it makes that much difference one way or the other. But I was curious what the real story was now that this has been such fodder for the various partisan camps, and as I tried to dig out where the truth was, I just came to dead ends, so I was wondering if anyone had any independent sources one way or the other. Apparently the answer to that question is "no."

And I'm sorry, the military no longer has any credibility for its own "internal investigations" after what happened with Lynch and Tillman. Which is part of a larger, and unfortunate, phenomenon with the federal government in general - with Bush the strong core of professionals who made our government, in its various departments, run, has been severely damaged, with politicos overriding what the professionals do, in many cases driving the professionals out of government altogether. So now when I hear what some federal agency is saying in the news, I treat all of it with a healthy grain of salt. That is not paranoia. That is open-eyed realism.

Anonymouse, I asked for independent sources of information. There aren't any. Objecting to government official sources after they have been proven, again and again, over the past six years to lie with impunity, strains reason. What is stretched in credibility these days is the government's word, not my objections to uncritical reliance upon it.

Objecting to government official sources after they have been proven, again and again, over the past six years to lie with impunity, strains reason.

For someone demanding hard sources, you haven't provided any demonstrating that the military actually did that -- not even in the Lynch or Tillman cases.

And I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you have little or no experience with the military. I haven't served, but I know at least a dozen friends and relatives who are or were enlisted in either the army or the airforce within the past ten years, at every level from private to officer (including a green beret), and I've conversed with most of them. I'll happily believe in the military's ability to police itself, even apart from the ocassional unfortunate incident, before I'll consider your unconditional skepticism to be anything other than unhealthy, unfair, and unwarranted.

Incidentally, did you intentionally back away from Abu Ghraib just now, which was fully investigated and disciplined regardless of the media's role in bringing it to public attention? And which is much closer to a model for the kind of behavior STB was claiming, as compared to what occurred in the Tillman and Lynch incidents?

Dearest Disgusted:

In accessing the merits of the competing claims, it might be useful to examine the nature of the claims. Beauchamp's columns in TNR were filled with assertions that were obviously wrong or implausible. In the "obviously wrong" category is Beauchamp's assertion that he could tell an Iraqi had been murdered by a the Iraqi police because the victim had been shot with a 9mm Glock (a pistol brand). He could tell the deadly shots had come from a Glock because spent cartridge cases on the ground close to the body were "square backed" and only Glock's use square backed cartridges. He could tell the Iraqi police fired the shots because only the Iraqi police use Glocks in Iraq. Beauchamp's assertion is obviously wrong because NO pistol fires a square backed cartridge AND Glocks are used by many civilians and insurgents in Iraq. The gun is NOT used exclusively by the police. So, even if Beauchamp could tell by looking at a spent cartridge case that it had been fired by a Glock (which is something he could not have done), he could not have known the person was murdered by the police. Period. Also obviously wrong is his tale that takes place in a part of Bagdad known as "little Venice" because waist deep sewage runs through the streets. No such place exists. Ankle deep sewage? Maybe. Waist deep sewage? No way.

In the implausible category are a whole host of Beauchamp's assertions. One of these is his assertion that a Bradley driver routinely ran over stalls in the market place, took out the corners of buildings, and swerved to hit stray dogs, etc. Could a Bradley hit a market stall? Sure. Could a Bradley run over a dog? Yes. But could these things be done routinely, for nothing more than the amusement of the driver? Implausible, at best. It's implausible for a number of reasons: A Bradley driver cannot see the side of his vehicle, so it'd be impossible for him to accurately target a stray dog. Swerving left and right while on patrol (with a fully loaded vehicle) would be awfully uncomfortable for the men riding in the back and risk their injury. It's not the kind of thing the vehicle commander is apt to condone. Running into the corner of a building might damage the vehicle's armor or its suspension. Again, that's not something the Bradley's commander would appreciate. Besides, the Army compensates civilians for ANY damage the Army causes buildings, so there would be all the related paperwork to fill out, etc. In short, Beauchamp's claims involving the Bradley do not pass the smell test. On their face, it's highly unlikely they are true.

What about the Army' assertions? They are entirely consistent with what you'd expect from an HONEST investigation. The Army's refusal to release details the investigation are consistent with Beauchamp's privacy rights. (Beauchamp could waive those rights, but, for some reason, has not.)

Has the Army lied in the past? Yes. Has TNR published fiction as truth in the past? Yes. Which has the greater incentive to cover things up this time? TNR and Beauchamp. Both TNR and Beauchamp could clear things up by releasing the names of its sources (TNR) and by waiving his privacy rights (Beauchamp). The Army cannot do more than it has, release the results of it investigation, but not the details, without Beauchamp's permission.

Disgusted, for you to maintain that, in this case, it's impossible to judge between the two sets of assertions is just plain wrong. But, as they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt.

The significance is that, if journalists do not care avidly about only printing things that are, to the best of their ability to determine, true, then it doesn't really matter whether they please John Quiggin by editorialising about the various people making domestic and foreign policy claims. That is because no one will be able to trust that there even was a trip to Iraq or a Michael O'Hanlon, so they won't read the story in the first place.

Quiggen said that doesn't make any sense to him, and it doesn't to me either. One of his points is, as near as I could grasp, that right-wing bloggers will spend countless hours attacking the credibility of Beauchamp and TNR, but little time at all defending the credibility of the O'Hanlon/Pollack report against its critics. If you cannot see the difference in importance between the former and the latter, then I'm sorry but I can't explain it, as it is completely obvious.

Quiggen is talking about the reactions of people who echo David Walser above; all effort is expended to attack Beauchamp-and defend those attacks-no effort is expended to defend a "serious" op-ed that is read by millions and may influence public thinking on the war.

And for what it's worth Walser, your arguments are really just an attempt to muddy the water, so no one will know what to believe. You could be 100% wrong about Beauchamp, and still have succeeded to meet this limited and dishonest goal. Congratulations for further ruining the discourse over this war.

I have no dog in this race - I really don't care of TNR or Beauchamp are liars - if they are, they are. But having to rely only on parties with a vested interest in lying one way or the other, I sought independent sources of information.

I think it is terribly sad that the government and the military has zero credibility when it comes to politically sensitive matters. It should not be that way. In the past, I'm sure it wasn't. But today, one would have to be a willing fool and dupe to just take the military line without question.

The military has an incentive now to make everything in Iraq look as good as possible. I don't know what Beauchamp's agenda is besides desiring attention. Like I said, I really don't care, I never read any of the articles he wrote, and to be frank, I read mostly about it on Michelle Malkin's web page, which I know I also need to take with a grain of salt.

I don't think it is too much to ask for independent verfication on a story that has become a political football for some.

Not having read any of the articles (nor really caring much about what he has to say anyway), I did not know the details of his stories. Though I do know that Glocks are rather common there now - they are found as far away as Turkey - I think thousands of them we've sent over there ended up on the black market.

Don't mistake my interest in an indepdenent source as an endorsement of TNR or this private - as I said before, I don't CARE if he's a liar, because I wasn't relying on anything he said and in fact read none of it. I don't read TNR. I'm not a liberal or a democrat, I'm a libertarian.

It just irks me to see it said that the military said 'x' so that means 'x' is true, end of discussion, when the military is a proven liar when it comes to political footballs. To call it unreasonable or denial not to take the word of a proven liar is to part company with reality.

It has been asserted that Beauchamp recanted, yet I found no evidence that he had beyond an anonymous attribution in the Weekly Standard. So that's why I doubt that assertion.
The military has asserted that the stories were all made up, and so I doubt that assertion as well, given there are no details given and given the source.
And finally, Beauchamp himself has made assertions that the TNR has asserted that they verified with independent sources.

Nice pivot, Disgusted, but meretricious, and intellectually dishonest.

The original assertions were made by Beauchamp/TNR, and those are the ones that must be a) substantiated, or b) rejected.

Never mind the story about Beauchamp recanting; at this point, that's unsubstantiated as well. Characterizing the military's statements as "assertions," while true in the strictest sense, was a transparent ploy to link back to my post regarding the burden of proof. The military's statement would be more accurately characterized as a denial.

And as for the last gem, who are TNR's substantiating sources? What did they say? When did they say it? That's what we're waiting for. Until and unless they come up with that, their story has to be regarded as fiction.

Put it in context. Suppose someone published a story that clearly implied that the liberal demographic largely comprises sexual degenerates, drug users, galloping narcissists, fashionistas, assorted crackpots and other losers, and hard core communist operatives. (I grew up in the Bay Area, and graduated from Berkeley, places where that characterization is not worlds removed from reality.) Would you then be adopting a "maybe yes, maybe no" perspective until a thoroughly sourced, point-by-point refutation was available?

Of course not. Nor should you. Whoever made the original assertion bears the burden of proof, not those "asserting" that the original assertion is false.

Disgusted, would that your extreme skepticism toward anything from the military be applied equally toward the TNR story/defense. For a little perspective, to anybody with some acquaintance with the military (your description above of "thick-necked majors" betrays you; majors almost invariably hold master's degrees and are hardly thuggish types), Beauchamp's stories sounded borderline ludicrous from the start. Say Fox News had done a story about an pseudonymous university professor getting together with some buddies from his Gender and Queer Studies department bowling team to go deer hunting and ended up beating up some bikers in a barroom brawl, thus showing the dehumanizing effect of academia. Would you be skeptical of such a tale? Would you demand that Fox at least come up with some names and dates and some corroborating facts? Would you be satisfied with Fox quoting only anonymous sources? Would you be inclined to believe both sides equally? Quoting Occam above, "You've been had. Accept it".

Occam - You are confusing two things here - it is true that he who asserts must prove, but that does not mean that, absent proof, someone has proven the opposite. In that case, the most you can say is that the assertion has not been established true - NOT that it has been falsified.

And the context of this discussion started with people claiming that they knew, for a FACT, that nothing in the stories was true, based on an army investigation. Now we have a new assertion - that someone has investigated the allegations (the Army) and concluded that they were not true and further, that this private recanted. Those assertions were then taken as TRUE, when in fact, they were simply further unsupported assertions.

And finally, both you and Chuck - your examples are rather extreme - it was not my impression that the tales told by this infamous private were that outlandish, given the context of a military involvement and occupation in the middle of an ugly, violent civil war. I think you overstate the "obviousness" that his stories must have been fabrications.

As for believing Fox News, just saying "Fox News reported" was enough for me to know that the next words would be pro-GOP propeganda. Anyone who watches Fox News who thinks otherwise has been had.

As for me, I haven't been "had" since I neither believed nor disbelieved the private's stories - I never read them, don't really care to, true or not. I was curious more about the political football and if anyone who is shouting back and forth on either side of the partisan divide had anything resembling independent information to go on. Apparently, that answer is "no." I now return you to your partisan shouting.

Quiggen is talking about the reactions of people who echo David Walser above; all effort is expended to attack Beauchamp-and defend those attacks-no effort is expended to defend a "serious" op-ed that is read by millions and may influence public thinking on the war.

I think you're badly confused about the situation as well as who owes whom what.

IF prominent members of the conservative blogosphere ha waved the O'Hanlon/Pollack report around like a signal flag, AND prominent members of the liberal blogosphere had then spent a great deal of time pointing out that the report had numerous flaws, inconsistencies, and claims that strained all credibility, BUT the conservative commentators insisted that the report was either true until proven false or its accuracy was irrelevant because it illustrated a broader picture, THEN we would have apples to compare against apples.

Accusing the conservative blogosphere of spending too much time on offense in territory that makes you uncomfortable, and recommending that they divert their attention to defending something that already has proper sourcing data to stand or fall on its own merits, is a debate tactic that's just a little too transparent.

And for what it's worth Walser, your arguments are really just an attempt to muddy the water, so no one will know what to believe. You could be 100% wrong about Beauchamp, and still have succeeded to meet this limited and dishonest goal. Congratulations for further ruining the discourse over this war.

I imagine that "Walser" is capable of defending his own person and arguments, but I will quote the above to note that if your previous statement was a transparent argument, the above is Windex.

As for me, I haven't been "had" since I neither believed nor disbelieved the private's stories - I never read them, don't really care to, true or not. I was curious more about the political football and if anyone who is shouting back and forth on either side of the partisan divide had anything resembling independent information to go on. Apparently, that answer is "no." I now return you to your partisan shouting.

Wow...Expertly trolled! You jumped into the conversation thread, claimed impartial interest in the topic, requested sources, threw around some blanket invective against any information sources available, and for a finale, you're claiming to take the gentlemen's exit from a party of rogues!

I've got to admit, I did fall for it. Nicely played, sir. I'd even tip my hat if we mice types were into your strange human ideas of clothing.

You are confusing two things here - it is true that he who asserts must prove, but that does not mean that, absent proof, someone has proven the opposite. In that case, the most you can say is that the assertion has not been established true - NOT that it has been falsified.

This puts words in my mouth. I never said that absence of proof proves the contrary statement. The point was not that the statement has been falsified, but rather that a prudent course is to default to skepticism until provided with sufficient substantiation to move off that position. In short, to assume the statement is false until and unless it is substantiated.

That's a far cry from saying the assertion has been proven false. (In this case, Beauchamp's assertion that war dehumanized him to the point that he mocked a disfigured woman has been proven false, since by all accounts he hadn't been in war at that juncture. He might as well have still been in Missouri at that point.) But until he or TNR comes up with some substantiating evidence, we have to assume the stories are fabrications.

By the way, my proposed "scoop" was not that outlandish at all. If you live in the Bay Area , that story would be no more newsworthy than reporting that the sun rose in the east that morning (although residents/inmates would outwardly resent my characterization of them, in their hearts they would probably recognize themselves).

Disgusting, what you lack in substance, you make up for with volume. Dsquared himself would be proud.

"IF prominent members of the conservative blogosphere ha waved the O'Hanlon/Pollack report around like a signal flag, AND prominent members of the liberal blogosphere had then spent a great deal of time pointing out that the report had numerous flaws, inconsistencies, and claims that strained all credibility, BUT the conservative commentators insisted that the report was either true until proven false or its accuracy was irrelevant because it illustrated a broader picture, THEN we would have apples to compare against apples."

1) This is the first and only comment in this entire post that in any way addresses the Quiggen post. Which was not about Beauchamp's credibility or even about whether FBA is an acceptable standard of journalism, but about the disproportionate amount of scrutiny directed at an obscure diarist vs. a NYT opinion piece.

2) How is Disgusted Beyond Belief a troll for holding the assertions made & quoted in this thread to the standards of journalism the writers of this thread require of Beauchamp? All DBB has asked for is evidence, & all s/he's gotten is lectures as to why s/he should take your words (or the military's) on faith. So all one has to do is beat TNR's ratio of truth/falsity in order to be beyond reproach (or even confirmation). Maybe there's hope for Fox News after all.

3) Mike Royko once wrote a column about a friend of mine, in which he misrepresented numerous central facts. And for which he never contacted her (or her parents, as she was a minor at the time) to check any of his facts. So much for the good old days.

All DBB has asked for is evidence, & all s/he's gotten is lectures as to why s/he should take your words (or the military's) on faith.

No.

The point, for those who missed it (not naming names here), was that in the absence of substantiating evidence supporting an assertion (in this case, Beauchamp's), one must retain the status quo ante and default to skepticism. Period.

People, it's really not that difficult.

Replace Beauchamp's assertions with those of someone claiming to have seen the Loch Ness monster. How did we know he didn't see Nessie? Where is the evidence of those who scoff at him? (Hey, it could be true!)

The logic is exactly the same. I'm not saying that the validity is necessarily the same, although I suspect it is, but the reasoning to assess the claim pertains to any assertion. I'm trying to show how silly the contrary position is, by choosing something that everyone agrees (I hope!) is nonsense, and that following the reasoning espoused by some above would lead one to entertain Nessie's existence.

The point being that someone who claimed to see the Loch Ness monster had better have some !@#$%^ good evidence. If I doubt that guy, you don't need to take my word on faith. In fact, you shouldn't, and I don't want you to. You should be able to reason your way through this yourself, and realize the evidence (one man's say so) does not provide adequately substantiation to support such a remarkable assertion. Until you and I see hard evidence (preferably someone hauling up Nessie by the tail), we should remain skeptical. We have no obligation to disprove his assertion; rather, he has the burden to prove it.

That's all I'm saying. Doesn't that make sense?

Evidence of what?

Why should the NYT piece be scrutinized or even read? Who cares about the details of a little jaunt to Iraq? There's nothing to judge but how the actual trip compared to their personal expectations and what you think of the persons. Not knowing them or wanting to know about them. I think I just won't read the piece. 1 is absurd.

2 has no bearing on reality. There has been plenty of good reason given, you just choose to ignore it. You really believe the military is making it up? Come on.

John Quiggin is a joke. What exactly do you think you are defending? People should only read and criticize high profile writing? And only positive reporting? WTF?

I hope you're just egging people on for your own entertainment. If you're at all serious, you should kill yourself.

I agree that John Quiggin is a joke. At least as far as he reveals himself in this article. His reasoning is specious. And it's specious reasoners defending him on this thread as well.

For what it's worth, I explain exactly why I think he's a joke here:

http://iraqnow.blogspot.com/2007/08/defense-of-fake-but-accurate.html

(of course I don't really mean that whole suicide thing. Even if you're serious, you're just in denial. You'll grow out of it.)

"The point, for those who missed it (not naming names here), was that in the absence of substantiating evidence supporting an assertion (in this case, Beauchamp's), one must retain the status quo ante and default to skepticism. Period."

Yes. Exactly. But many posters here have done more than default to skepticism. They have made positive claims. And those claims, in turn, are subject to the same requirements for substantiating evidence that you hold Beauchamp to. That is, they are separate from Beauchamp's claims. Claims of their own (for those of you who missed it). You can't defer your responsibility to substantiate your own claims until the person you accuse proves himself innocent.

Asking for evidence to support the assertion that Beauchamp is a liar is not the same thing as asserting that there is any credibility to Beauchamp's story. The possibility that Beauchamp is telling the truth is not a necessary precondition for requiring evidence of someone's guilt (to avoid such unpleasantness as slander. Or looking like an idiot). That is the difference between believing someone or not, & calling someone a liar or not. Between saying, "I don't believe Beauchamp because he doesn't support his case with evidence" and saying "I don't believe Beauchamp because he recanted his claims." The first, you are not obligated to prove. For the second, it would be considerate of you to provide a link. And it would make your argument a good deal more convincing.

It's really not that difficult. Whether or not Beauchamp is a liar, you still have to tell the truth. Even about Beauchamp. And if you don't have the evidence (even if it's for reasons beyond your control. Even if it's Beauchamp himself is withholding it), your argument is the weaker for it. Them's the breaks.

cw,

Fair enough. We agree entirely.

I took accusations that Beauchamp was a liar as a ...shall we say "overenthusiastic" ... way of saying "Prove it." But that's a matter of interpretation, and yours that such accusations themselves need substantiation is a valid interpretation too.

In the department of unintentional humor, I read a book review on the Powell's Bookstore website, reprinted from The New Republic.

"'Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero by Lucy Riall' 'The Hero Machine' a review by Alexander Stille in The New Republic on August 16, 2007:

One of the interesting cultural differences that separates us from the culture of the Garibaldi cult is the almost willful use of wholly invented stories and details in the vast majority of Garibaldi biographies that circulated at the time. Even though there was plenty of dramatic and novelistic material from the real life of Garibaldi to draw on, writers seemed to go out of their way to fabricate stories and details. As Riall observes, conforming to the canons of contemporary romance and melodrama was much more important than any notion of journalistic accuracy and historical verisimilitude. "One of the most striking features of this script," she writes, "was the apparently seamless blend of fact and fiction, of novelistic fantasy and political truth, and this blend...seems to have been at the heart of Garibaldi's public success."

Sorry Forgot the Link:

http://www.powells.com/review/2007_08_16

Thank you cw, that was exactly what I was getting at. Paraphrasing Occam, I see a distinction between "he's a liar" and "it's unproven either way."

And my original comment was just a request for information - I tried looking for independent sources of information and found none. Rather than just admit there were no independent sources of information (as of right now, there are none that I've found), I was instead accused of being a troll and it was asserted again and again that he was a liar.

I was instead accused of being a troll

I accused you of being a troll because of your tactics, not your desire for reasonably impartial evidence. Specifically, your tactic of lighting on fire every possible source of evidence available if it failed to conform to your stated preferred narative, while demanding that the Others show up with...what? The peer reviewed STB expose in the latest issue of Nature?

Are there any clearly impartial sources available for the Beauchamp foofra? Probably not. But a reasonable person can assign weights and balances based both on capability and past performance in sum. Your blanket dismissals of the military based on a couple isolated incidents (Tillman, Lynch) that were (1) not comparable to the present and (2) blown out of proportion by the media, while attempting to cite Abu Ghraib which (1) teaches the opposite lesson of military investigative performance and follow-up discipline from what you were intending and (2) was blown out of proportion by the media, is not prima fascia evidence of someone who is analyzing source credibility with an unprejudiced mind.

Fox News? I happen to hate all television news sources equally for roughly the same reasons, but that doesn't mean they are incapable of producing valid data points. Moreover, your willingness to discard Fox News as rubbish, while parroting various other media outlets' staple canards about the condition of the Iraq War, was further evidence of someone who is not judging biased sources as carefully as he thinks he is.

Finally, TNR: Reported a story that had numerous credibility problems based on the situational dynamics and/or physical capabilities of the persons and equipment involved, and a key substantive point of which was later retracted by the claimant (location, something which STB could otherwise prove easily based on troop assigments). Claimant was revealed to have stated creative writing aspirations and happened to be the spouse of a TNR staffer, and TNR has a previous history of being taken for a long and wild ride by a skilled liar, suggesting their ability to truly discern and fact-check crap from gold is, shall we say, somewhat wanting.

End result? We probably won't find an impartial study on this incident in the near future, if ever.

But on the other hand, if I claim to have trekked deep into the Sahara desert barefoot during daylight hours, witnessed the northern lights that evening, and then sacrificed a live goat to Gaia in response while Stephen Hawking played Schubert's Le Truit on a xylophone, it is entirely fair for others to demand of me (a) 'prove it or you're probably lying' and (b) 'you're probably lying', on the basis Paul Bunyan is a shorter tale than the one I'm spinning. It's still possible for my tale to have elements of truth layered deep in conveniently-omitted facts (which, if revealed, would completely change the thrust of the story), but misleading half-truths are still lies by common definition.

Anony-mouse - take heart, you've inspired me to post about trolls. Ok, that's a white-lie - I was already inspired to do so based on a thread I observed (but did not participate in) on another site but was simply too busy to post it until after this exchange.

My original question was a simple one. It could be answered yes or no. The answers I did get would have been a lot more credible had they started with "No, we have no independent sources of information, so we really don't know for sure what happened, but here are some portions of the private's writings that are suspect and here's why."

I get what you are saying about some things being inherently unbelievable, but I think you overstate it. He was not claiming aliens landed or that famous people were playing the xylophone. He instead was claiming that people do some f'd up stuff while in a war zone in the middle of someone else's civil war. That, unfortunately, cannot be as easily dismissed on its face as can claims of disabled Newton-chaired physicists playing the xylophone.

And finally, I gave good reasons to suspect the military - if this were some incident that was NOT a political football that was being blogged to death by the blogsphere (or at least a good portion of the right-wing blogsphere that I saw) then perhaps I'd have been less suspect about it. But credibility, once lost, is hard to regain - and the commonality between Tillman and Lynch is that both involved political footballs that had high media visibility. Just like this case. The military clearly has a conflict of interest on this. They also have a clear and very recent history of giving incorrect information after "investigations" involving political football issues. (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I probably qualify as an Iraq expert.)

Given that, it was not unreasonable to seek an unbiased or independent source. I did not take TNR's word for it. I did not take the private's word for it. I did not take the military's word for it. Yet I was only attacked here for not taking the military's word. (And it was somehow assumed that because I did not take the military's word for it, that meant I believed the private, TNR, and apparently like to club small baby seals to death in my spare time when I'm not standing under bridges doing my duty as a troll).

For those of you having trouble understanding DBB, allow me to translate for you:

"Waaaaa! Mommy! The other posters are being mean to me, just because I called the military the crazed, rapist killbots they are! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

RMc - wow, you really can tell when someone has lost an argument - usually it happens when they have to insert, ventriloquist-puppet-like, words into the mouth of their opponent that were never actually said. Tell me, what other things have I said that I somehow missed (having never said them)?

Hmmm...

Dishonest vs. lying.

Didn't realize that was your argument. My apologies.

Now, where does JQ's Iraq tourist guide book vs. Assessment of officials, troops, and data from Iraq come in?

It's the only profession where we are supposed to give them some sort of respect or adulation despite the fact the require no training or certification for their work, face no repercussions for their lies or mistakes, aren't monitored or regulated, and now, apparently, feel they don't even have to tell the truth.

It's the only profession where we are supposed to give them some sort of respect or adulation despite the fact the require no training or certification for their work, face no repercussions for their lies or mistakes, aren't monitored or regulated, and now, apparently, feel they don't even have to tell the truth.

you really can tell when someone has lost an argument

Who's arguing? I was just translating, Mr. Disgusting Beyond Belief.

Now go watch some Hillary '08 videos. You'll feel better.

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